Careless Whisper
by ImGonnaBuildCastles
Summary: Fourteen-year-old Angel tries to cope with what's happened


Autumn 1987

The silence fell upon the house as the green trees turned to orange. It came almost instantly, not that it was surprising, really it was only natural. The weather was changing, the once sunny, bright days, turned into dark mornings where she could barely drag herself out of bed. Things always seemed harder when it was darker. The music in the house had stopped playing, there was no need to play it. It had been a distraction, she had read that music helped a baby sleep, she found out otherwise, but that didn't stop her playing wham's greatest hits to him.

As it was only September, her mother refused to have the heating on. Something about it not being needed. A freezing Ange at 2AM would be inclined to disagree as she tried to get some sleep before she had to be up for school, although the bottle of vodka she kept nearby did wonders, not only did it warm her up, but it helped her get some sleep.

She didn't say much, there wasn't that much to say. Her mum asked her if she was okay, the day after. She told her she was fine, but she wanted to sleep. Her mum didn't query it, although Ange knew her mum was listening when she burst into tears after she had escaped from a very awkward dinner. She knew that she didn't know what to say, but then again, nor did she.

She wanted to scream, to cry. She wanted to feel something other than this numbness she felt inside. The pain was too great, overwhelming, but she couldn't locate it, paracetamol didn't help, nor did Ibuprofen, or aspirin, cider and even the vodka effect was starting to wear off.

She wondered if her mum realised that she was drinking, the beauty with vodka was that you couldn't smell it and her reactions could be blamed on her grief, if you can call it that? She was grieving for her dad, but are you still allowed to grieve three years after the person had been dead? She thought not, she knew she should be over it by now, accepting that he was gone, that her dad wasn't coming back? There was something inside of her that told her she still wasn't over it, the feeling was dying down, being overtaken by her son.

Can you grieve for someone who is alive? Someone she won't ever know, she won't know when he starts walking or talking. She won't be there for his first day of school, she won't be there for him when he comes home in tears because he's been upset by something. She won't be there for his first relationship, she doesn't have a future with him, and that hurts. She wanted nothing more than a future with him, one where she can be his mum.

She wonders what Jimmy was doing? He probably wasn't breaking down, not like her. He was probably living his life, in the lap of luxury, if she was actually with him it might have been different. The teenager is confused as to whether this was a one-night stand, it wasn't technically one night. They met on the Saturday and they didn't leave Bromley until the Monday. It wasn't a relationship, but he was nice. In those two days, he made her feel something, happier than she had in the last few years.

He brought her dinner, the pair walking around the centre of this town, apparently, he came here a fair bit, so he knew where he was going, telling her all sort of weird and wonderful facts she never knew she wanted to know, things she didn't really care about normally. There was something endearing about him as he went on about them building a new shopping centre, a bigger shopping centre. He told her that daylight saving was created nearby, not that she even understood what the point of daylight saving was, let alone where it was created, she never let on that she didn't know that, though.

He was the gentleman, he wouldn't have slept with her if she wasn't willing, cuddling her after it happened, as she tried not to let on that she was in so much pain. He made her laugh, promising her that he was glad she was his first time, that he really liked her. Maybe if there wasn't such a distance between them, and she's not just talking about the mileage, it would have worked. In another life, it could have been different. If they met when they were older, or if they were equal in society, it may have worked, she promised herself on the train back to Glasgow, trying not to cry.

Jimmy, James, his life was so different. He told her that he had a brother and a sister, he was going to be a lawyer, follow in his dad's footsteps, he went to some posh school. She wasn't. She lives in a two-bed flat on the wrong side of the tracks. Her dad died years ago, and then it was just her and her mum. There was never enough money, she had earnt the money for those tickets because she had got a silly little Saturday job in a café, earning next to no money for gruelling shifts.

He told her that he loved her, and for those thirty-six hours she believed it, knowing deep down it would never work. He's the sort of guy who had his life planned out. He would go to Oxford or Cambridge for university, then he was going to marry a, rich, family friend, with a name like Elizabeth or Victoria, and they would have two kids. She wasn't that, her life wasn't set out. Knowing her luck, she would end up working in the same café for the rest of her life, living pay check to pay check. She wasn't going to be anything, and he was going to be everything.

He asked for her number and she gave it to him, knowing full well that he was never going to get hold of her. Maybe if she had given him the correct number, she wouldn't be lying her, in the cold. Maybe they would be together, with their son. Maybe they would be content with what they had because, despite only being teenagers, they could make it work.

Yet, her selfishness, didn't give him a chance. So much would have worked against her, against them, she would have never been accepted into his culture, even his friends had made comments when they first met her, stupid little comments. They hurt, nonetheless. She thought she would have forgotten about Jimmy, even if it weren't for their son, but his face was etched, ingrained, in her mind. When she was lying in bed, her bump nearly as big as her, she would think about him, the only time she gave him space in her head. She would try to remember the way he looked at her, the way he spoke, trying to remember how it felt when he hugged her so tight when they went their separate ways in Victoria station. She wondered if their baby would be like him, she hadn't known if it was a boy or a girl until he had been born, instantly she had seen him in the baby.

She didn't give him a chance at being a dad, she had wondered what he would have been like? She doesn't know enough about him to be able to make any sort of guess. She can imagine he would be a good one, one that was gentle, much like her own father. She could only base those assumptions on what he was like when they had sex.

Even though she fell pregnant, she didn't regret sleeping with him. She genuinely really liked him, he seemed like a nice guy. She had been asked questions about him, refusing to tell anyone about him. That was hers, something that she knew she would take to the grave. She wasn't sure why she didn't want anyone to know about him, she wasn't embarrassed, she just didn't think it had been anyone else's business. She had promised her son, as she cradled him hours after giving birth, that she would tell him about his dad when he was old enough to-do something about it. Now she would never get that chance, her son would never get that chance.

She knows that she made the right decision, eventually, giving her son up was for his sake. She would have loved nothing more than to be a mum, but she found that she was particularly crap at that. She had known pretty early on that this wasn't the right decision, she just hadn't been willing to admit it to herself, she wanted him so very much. She had been promised that he would know she loved him, and she told herself that it would be enough. Him knowing that he was wanted, was loved, just had to be enough.

That's why she doesn't sleep, she's haunted by his face. If she falls asleep, she sees him in her dreams, except he's asking why he wasn't good enough, wasn't loved enough. Or her dad is there, telling her what a disappointment she is. Or sometimes it's Jimmy, telling her that she was a whore who didn't deserve their child, because she gave him away.

She had known she had changed, the last few years had been nothing but change. She had been a massive daddy's girl, then he died. Then she got pregnant, except she didn't know she was pregnant until she was edging nearer her fourth month of her pregnancy. Her periods had only started less than a year ago, even then they were irregular. It was a pure fluke that she found out, she had fainted during her PE lesson, hitting her head on a wooden bench and she had to go to a and e, it was there that she was asked by a kind nurse if she was pregnant. She told her she didn't think so, but it had escalated from there, that the weight she had been putting on was actually a baby. She had spent the remaining months looking forward to the baby's arrival, it went downhill pretty quickly following that though, that's how she ended up here.

She had become quite, subdued. She didn't have anyone to talk to, she couldn't turn to her mother, she was disappointed enough. She didn't really have friends anymore, they grew apart when they found out she had gotten pregnant, their parents stopped them hanging out with her, as if pregnancy was a contagious disease.

The nurse had diagnosed her with post-natal depression, three weeks before she gave him up. She would be telling a lie if she said that wasn't one of the deciding factors when she started the adoption process, on a sunny day at the end of August. People like her, they weren't fit to be parents, she told herself.

She didn't get "proper" help until after that decision had been made, almost as if she was worried, she would change her mind, she didn't want that. She wanted clarity, that's what giving up her son did. The thought had been on her mind from days after he was born, wondering if she could do this. She thought those moments would make it alright, she got his first smile for fucks sake. Except it didn't, she was so sad all of the time, she was struggling, and she knew this was the right thing to-do.

Except, nothing helped her at the moment. The alcohol, the medication, the psychiatrist, it was nothing. She was well and truly on a self-destruct mission, or so she had been told. She didn't care, she knew she needed to-do something, but the fourteen-year-old didn't want the help.

It was only as the tree's began to shed their leaves that she realised she needed help, she had been admitted to the hospital after she had been on a bender and she had contemplated what happened next. It had occurred to her as she was sobbing by the canal, shivering like mad, that she didn't want to live like this anymore, she wanted to feel better, she wanted the help. A kind stranger had found her and asked if she needed help. That sort of thing never happened, not where she was from. It was a sign that she needed help. She sobbed to the kind doctor in a and e, who got her an urgent referral, promising that she would feel better soon. And she did, she was learning to deal with that pain, that grief, and she was finally getting her life back on track. She finally had the opportunity to-do something, to make something of herself, and it felt good. The guilt didn't disappear, but she managed to cope with it.

She was doing it for him, so that if he ever came looking, he would realise that she tried, that she wanted to prove she could be more than just a teenage parent, so he wouldn't be ashamed about where he came from. She wanted to live so that she could answer the questions he would have, about his heritage and she would be the only person to-do that. Even with all the help, she hadn't muttered a single word about Jimmy. She had meant what she said, she would only tell her son about him, it was no one else's business. She thought that she was, finally, picking up the pieces of her life, she was finally coming to terms with it.

And she didn't think anything would ever be able to hurt this much.

_**A/n Thought's?**_


End file.
